Just to throw in a comment somewhat related to something someone else brought up in a previous post (how vague is that!).

The worldwide market for console games is much bigger than for PC games. Console games cost more to produce because of per unit royalty fees you have to pay Nintendo, Sony, etc., plus the fact that console games tend to use licensed content which adds another cost. But other than that, console development cycles are usually shorter than their PC bretheren. So, per unit profits are lower, but the market is much bigger, so most publishers make more money of console games than PC games.

PC games are cheaper to produce but usually take longer. The per unit profits are a lot higher, but the volume is usually not there.

I gleaned this information from a lengthy investors report outlining the interactive entertainment industry. Now back to your regular programming.

R.



Edited by - Tacit on January 11, 2002 2:19:00 PM

quote: Original post by AngelStar
Oh youre most definitely right my friend, but the difference is that Square releases other types of games, when was the last time Sierra has released something other than Half Life? Square released 5 games in 2000, they make rpgs, shoo blah blah blah

You have no idea what you are talking about, Sierra is a publisher, Valve made Half-Life. Sierra is just a publisher. You can''t compare theses compagnies. It looks like you are just ranting about bad games in general. Pointing out how bad games are does not a game designer make.

I give you the title "four-star and a half ranter, for the efforts"

In defense of AngelStar, Sierra is currently a publisher. That wasn't always the case, and actually has only become the case recently. Yes, Valve developed Half-Life, but at the time that Half-Life was released, a lot of dev companies were under sierra's development umbrella and were collectively reffered to as "Sierra". This included Valve, Dynamix, Coktel Vision, Jeff Tunnel Productions, Impressions, and a bunch of other companies. They kinda worked like Johnson and Johnson, where there are lots of companies (Jansen, PRI, Ortho McNeal) but you just know them as J&J. Dynamix even used to have "Part of the Sierra Familly" on their logo. Therefore, saying that he doesn't know anything for that reason is being really nit-picky, and could have been an honest mistake or simple comparison (which actually worked well.)

Against AngelStar, Sierra published some good games recently. Arcanum being one. They also got the rights to No One Lives Forever. Not sure when they were released but Pharoh and Cleopatra, Zeus and Prosidan (forgive speeling ) are all sierra games. Empire Earth is also. They also have a lot of productivity software that you might not have looked at. They just don't publish nearly as much as they used to.

Edited by - Warden on January 11, 2002 5:44:26 PM

You are right, Sierra was not always a publisher, but it doesnt invalidate my point. He was talking about Half-Life precisely. He was talking out of his ass. I could have mentionned Tribes (which was groundbreaking) but was developped by Dynamix and published by Sierra. But I don't like talking out my ass. I still stand firm that he is just badmouthing games and somehow it makes him a designer that could make so much better games.

Edited by - hpox on January 11, 2002 5:53:32 PM

quote: Original post by Muzikus
Angelstar,
I've been thoroughly impressed with a lot of what you've said, and you really express a lot of the frustrations I feel as a would be designer.Good luck to you,I have every confidence you
are one of the few who have what it takes to make it in this rather immature industry.

This is a pretty baseless statement of support given that myself and others pretty much debunked almost everything AngelStar said that wasn't purely an opinion. Like I said (some months ago now - this is an old thread!), if you don't think that designers get the 'respect' they deserve, look at how much money gets thrown at the Romeros and Molyneuxs and Garriots of this world to produce their next visions. The only designers who aren't getting any respect are the ones who post on forums like this, giving their utterly subjective criticisms on the state of the industry, and yet not putting in the hard work to try and change it for themselves.

[ MSVC Fixes | STL | SDL | Game AI | Sockets | C++ Faq Lite | Boost ]

Edited by - Kylotan on January 11, 2002 12:13:07 AM

I think Romero is a pretty special case here. He''s got a lot more say in how id operates and what direction it will go than most other designers out there. Plus, any idea he comes up with id came come up with the technology to make it a reality. Not too many other studios out there can do that for a designer. I don''t know if I actually had a point to make with all of this, but I just wanted to put it out there for everyone to think about.

Bill6

You do realise John Romero left iD software several years ago, yes?

I consider myself a designer with a smattering or programming and artistic skills. I''m a semi-decent pencil artist, and I know enough about programming to know the difference between a pointer and a reference, and polymorphism and inheritance. But I think the question you really need to ask yourself is....why are YOU so limiting? You claim that others denigrate and put down the role of game designer, and you yourself go and unequivocably declare what defines a good or bad designer.

Firstly, what is a game? There are simulations, there are interactive stories, and there are goal-oriented "missions". Why does a good game designer have to be able to design games for several genres? Are you saying that a composer is not good unless he can write jazz, classical and hip hop music? To be honest, that''s a very silly and limiting definition. Going back to the music analogy, while I think a composer does not need to be able to actually play an instrument to write for it, he must know the nuances of the instrument, and must have a good grasp of musical theory. In other words, a game designer need not necessarily be able to write code, but he should have a good understanding of programming theory and should understand how all the "instruments" relate (artistic assets, limitations of technology, etc.). If all a game designer does is conjure ideas of gameplay and game world, then he writes it in a vacuum which may or may not be able to support his ideas.

So, is writing a WWII fighter sim make a game designer somehow "unimaginative"? I think there are two major aspects to game design. The first most obvious is gameplay...this is the "feel" of the game, and how the game actually gets played out. The second is game world background, and involves the backdrop of where the game exists. I''ve often seen great gameplay with horrid game worlds or vice versa. Originality can stem from either aspect, even if the ideas have been used before in one implementation or another.

One last comment. I think game designers often tend to see their work as some sort of OPUS. Like a "grand maitre faire" that will be an epic or a blockbuster, or never seen before original. And while that can be a lofty and worthwhile goal, I think there are lots of hobbyists that would just like to write the game that they would like to see come to fruition....whether it will have mass appeal or not. In a corporate sense, this is bad-thinking, but then again...maybe its not. I remember in the early-mid 90''s at the point when Marvel comics was going bankrupt. How did the world''s most successful comic book company fall so far? Because they had gone public, and the editors (and therefore the creative minds) had to kowtow to business suits whose primary concern was the almighty dollar. So they went from being "the house of ideas" to a parody of what the "suits" thought that teenagers would buy up in droves...and came out with all sorts of gimmicks to get collectors to buy their wares. But in the end, the creative license and freedom that Marvel was known for was squashed...and they went bankrupt for it. So sometimes, I think trying to reach the broadest audience is NOT the way to garner acclaim or money. Just do what you want to do because deep down, it''s what you want to do. That way, whether it was a commercial success or failure, at least you got to create what you really wanted.

Ohh, I forgot to add this to my earlier post...

Kylotan is right about the Japanese praise. I used to be a hardcore anime fan and always admired that the Japanese took other artistic mediums than Americans (and I still believe they do). Now, the stuff I used to watch was stuff bootlegged out of Japan and translated by otaku fanboys. I watched Akira in 1993...with no subtitles or dubbing...just the art and I was blown away. I was very fortunate, in that I wasn''t fed what most Americans here outside of Chinatowns or other large Asian-American populations were fed. I got to see a broad gamut of Japanese storytelling...including all of Miyazaki''s stuf f(Nausica, Porco Rosso) Masamune Shirow (Orion, Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell, Tank Dominion), and TV series like Kimagure Orange Road, This is Greenwood, Ranma, and all the Urusei Yatsura stuff. There was also brilliant stuff like Wings of Honneamise or the Hakkenden.

I didn''t just watch Gundam, Robotech, Ninja Space Force Gatchaman (G-Force for everyone else), Spaceship Yamato or all the other BIG ROBOT genre stuff.

But then something happened. I noticed that Americans were copying "manga" style. And all of their stuff seemed to be rip-offs of Shirow or the big-robot stuff. Scads of artbooks came out on how to draw "manga style". And I thought to myself...."don''t these people realize that the Japanese are all about having your own style?" There is no such thing as manga style. The Japanese were just as individualistic in their artistic styles as anyone else...if not more so. But for some reason, Americans only saw a limited sub-set, and slapped the label, "manga style" on it. That''s like saying any music made in America is "american music". Well, I think Ozzy Osbourne and John Williams would have trouble being lumped together.

And then something else came along that made me realize that while the Japanese had a legup on treating other artistic mediums with equal reverance...the Americans still had originality on their side. Firstly, I learned that the real revolution of Japanese manga and anime came from the creator of "The White Lion" (unfortunately, I only remember that his name begins with an O). This was a little after WWII, and he said he copied his style from Disney. Ever wonder where the Japanese got their big-eyes small mouth style from? Not them....us. And when you think about, Disney really has come up with some very entertaining stuff...admittedly most of it is retelling of old stories, but some of it is very good in its own right.

I''ll give you two series that I believe are superior to any Japanese story I have seen with the possible exception of one. Batman the Animated Series and Gargoyles. Both series are very professionaly done, with an emphasis on intriguing storylines. They have top-noth voice acting talent and in the case of BTAS, had a very interesting artistic style. The more I watched Japanese stuff, the more I realized that they were just like the Americans...there were some truly brilliant stories out there...but for the most part, they were all copies or clones of other succesful stories. Now the only series I can think of that matches BTAS and gargoyles is Kimagure Orange Road the TV series (not the OAV''s). I highly recommend it to anyone that can get their hands on it, as it''s (IMHO) 10x better than Ranma or Urusei Yatsura.

So, what can we learn from the Japanese? To take artistic mediums like games, comics and animation just as seriously as TV or movies. I''m not really sure why the Japanese take to these other mediums so much more easily than mainstream America...but it must be something in their cultural mindset....because I see many of their ideas in our stories and vice versa.

Dauntless, you kind of contradicted yourself somwhere in those posts, but I totally agree with this "labelling" of various arts, it shouldn''t be tolerated.

I''m sure your aware that for many Japanese, the art is in the execution rather than the creation, ie, improve what''s available rather than create something new. Hope that makes sense...